I have adored every single episode so far in Alys Fowler’s The Edible Garden. It has just the sort of happy, floating-about-in-the-garden feeling that I really love, and as well as making me very happy, it has inspired me with some quirky recipes and ideas.
One of the recipes that caught my eye in the second episode was Alys’ recipe for dandelion fritters. As I’m an organic gardener who doesn’t pray to her lawn every morning, I’ve got a few dandelions coming up among the grass in my garden. Even though I try to keep on top of them by pulling them up, a few always evade me, and I’m rather glad they did.
I picked as many flowers as I could fine, and gave them a gentle wash and dry. Then I chopped the thick stems off the bottom, and dipped the flowerheads in sugar.
I mixed an egg, a cup of milk, a cup of flour and half a cup of sugar together in a bowl, and then, using a tablespoon, I poured small blobs of batter mixture into a frying pan where some oil was heating. As soon as the batter had formed a small circle, I pressed one dandelion head in, and left it to brown.
I know Alys dipped her dandelions in the mixture before frying, but I found this method was tastier and meant more mixture made it into the pan as well.
Once the fritters had browned on one side, I flipped them over to cook on the other, and then left to cool. They tasted delicious: in fact they had all gone within the hour. It took a while to convince Toby to eat them, and he did so with a great deal of fuss and face-pulling. But when my back was turned, he snuck up to the plate and stole a handful more of this lovely lawn snack.
I’ve also picked up two packets of dried peas to sow a pea-shoot salad in a pair of old drawers we found in our attic. I’ve been growing pea-shoot salads for years, but I’ve always felt a bit guilty about using good seed which would have provided a wonderful crop of pods. But thanks to these packs of Leo peas, which were 36p each, I’ll be eating more pea salads than I could possibly imagine.
What else have you learnt from The Edible Garden?
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Annelie
Wow, I don’t know what to say. I think I’ll say wow again.
Those are so cool. Can’t imagine them tasting good, but I would love to try them. They look beautiful.
Now I will check out the Edible Garden.
Nellie
I absolutely love the edible garden! Alys is amazing and my new found idol
I’ve also potted up some pea shoot salads using dried peas and I’m planning on trying the dandelion recipe – though dipping them in sugar first sounds like a good idea – think I’ll do that too!
miss Pickering
Isn’t it wonderful, full of inspiration, I followed her advice and headed to a car boot sale in search of plants. Came home with a boot quite full.
dozenoaks
I have such a girl crush on alys. We’re growing pea shoots too – I never understood them before, it seemed horrendously extravagant to waste good seed on shoots alone. I didn’t normal dried peas would shoot.
I’ve learnt not to be afraid of mixing up my veg and my flowers. I did it a bit anyway because of space constraints, but now I’m embracing it full tilt
Helen at Toronto Gardens
Two great ideas. Our parents used to make dandelion wine, but this is much faster (though not quite as intoxicating). How do you actually prepare the pea shoots — in a jar like mung beans, or between sheets of paper?
Wayfaring Wanderer
What an adorable way to make dandelion fritters! I love this, and will also try doing them this way.
I don’t know if you’ve seen any other recipes for dandelions, but I did a post just last week with all sorts of interesting recipes that you may be interested in as well.
Here’s a link:
Read more @ Wayfaring Wanderer: 10 Things You Can Do With Dandelions
p.s. Thanks for sharing the Edible Garden, I hadn’t heard of her before!!
Gala
Love thaaaat!
Never had anything with dandelion but I must try it sometime!